


The Vigil

by deepandlovelydark



Category: Sunless Sea
Genre: Belly Kink, Body Horror, Cannibalism Play, Food Kink, Food Porn, PWP, Stuffing, hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-09 23:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17414582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark
Summary: The Feast of Seven Fishes is one of those curiosities of the exile, a tradition defined by its absence in the home culture. Upon the Surface, it carries only homely connotations; domesticity, safety, satiation. Down in the Neath, by contrast, the opposite holds true.You thought you'd never find the right test subject for this cookbook.How fortunate that you were wrong.





	The Vigil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snickfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/gifts).



> A labour of love for one extremely specific prompt, and a jaded Bohemian captain.

It's afternoon before your Mechanic arrives, not so tireless as usual. Late afternoon at that, though you'd ordered him brought up as soon as he awoke; the day has been spent in meticulous planning for this moment. If the waiting has been long, it has at least been graced with anticipation. 

Thus he stands before you, hair rumpled and arms crossed uneasily, absurd in his pink linen-nightshirt. Vulnerable, wary, delicious prey: other captains would have him on the bed, clothing off, with no further ado. 

Instead, you bid him welcome. 

"I'm sorry," he says, with that meekness he bears whenever not possessed by his work. "I've been awfully sleepy ever since Hunter's Keep, I just keep nodding off...but it won't happen again, I promise. Just keep me on until Kingeater's, and I'll build you the finest engine ever dreamed of."

How delicate fear can be, when flavoured with duty, buoyed by need. It would take only a moment- the merest whisper- to comfort him. Promise that you have no intention of abandoning him, that you want the Fulgent Impeller as badly as he does. But demons and angels may go hang themselves together. Your tastes are more oblique, less easily explained, and altogether more difficult to satisfy.

When you gesture him to the waiting chair, he sits down slowly, with the Docker's reluctant acceptance of an unsightly task. 

All prelude, thus far; but the slow prickle of excitement starts to burn in your veins, as you describe a most pleasing solution to his woes. A passage in this new-fangled cookbook the cook has lent you, the theory of the humours updated for modern medicine. A sure-fire cure to win the most devoted addict from their laudanum, or lemon-scented gloop, or any other evil that might be disordering their spirit...in truth, it sounded not a whit more convincing when you perused the tome, but you're counting on his desperation to carry the day. Who knows? It might even work.

"I'll try anything at this point," the Mechanic agrees, studying the text with renewed vigour. "A feast of seven fishes...that's going to be a bit complicated to arrange, isn't it?"

"Already done," you say, whipping the lid off a silver dish, kept nicely heated in the dumbwaiter. (No clumsy cabin boy need apply to carry these dishes; this fantasy will be yours alone). "I expect you're wanting breakfast."

He blinks, as if surprised by the reminder. "Yes. Starving, come to think of it."

Choice example of your tastes: who else would find the small movements of the throat, that slight bob of the Adam's apple, to be so captivating, so redolent of desire? No one else aboard your ship, for sure and certain.

"Taste, then," you say, and present the first course. A preparation of angler crab, its  _illiciae_ chopped fine, sautéed and boiled with the merest drop of sherry. Perhaps it's the creature's roe that has turned the soup the colour of burnt orange; or perhaps that's the honey. An unorthodox preparation, and thoroughly illegal. 

A splash of it lands on your hand, as you ladle out rich liquid; unobtrusively, you lick it clean just as he brings the first spoonful to his mouth. Honey only flows one way, for the devils' own strange reasons. The Mechanic cannot sense your body; your memories remain safe, inviolate. 

But you can feel his (only in this moment, but this moment is all you care about)- you can feel anxious hunger ripping through him, the deep, pervading exhaustion beneath, an eager appetite for all things mechanical that has held him sane through everything...why is it, that this voyeur's satisfaction is so much more appealing than your own consummation? Empathy, or its crueler twin, sublimation...

He eats with the quick inattention of a man who scarcely considers food, an impatience exasperating to any true gourmand. Never mind. Time will slow him up.  

"If all the dishes are that light, I could probably get through the lot and ask for seconds...tasted pretty good though," he adds hastily. 

"I understand perfectly," you promise him.

Which you do. 

The second course is poached fin of neither. A dish that doesn't exist; and the Mechanic looks at you in simple outrage. 

"We caught these at Frostfound. All the time, and they're  _terrible._ "

A challenge you wouldn't have expected; that of all your hard-won Neath delights, there would be one that he simply wouldn't care for.

"Like drinking salt water, this stuff. You can eat all you want, but it won't fill your belly. Just leaves you feeling starved, as if you were scoffing faerie food..."

"D'you wish a cure or no?" you inquire. Politely, of course. 

He grimaces, and moderates his gobbling this time; you take care not to sigh or show pleasure, maintaining a Captain's respectable reserve. Nothing to betray your satisfaction, growing as his wanes. Bite after bite of subtle irony, an absurdity whose proof is so loudly, cavernously perceptible...

(How very unpleasant this meal would be, taken internally. Hence the honey.)

"Worse off than when I started," the Mechanic mutters, wincing as his stomach growls in hollow agreement. "So much for all this fancy cooking...sorry. Sorry. I know you're only being thoughtful."

"The next course ought to soothe you," you reassure him. Not quite the aching, quivering limit of rapacity; but as close as you can reasonably bring your officer, without risking future harm. A brief drop into the abyss, before resurfacing to safer waters. 

By way of compensation, the third course is that traditional zailors' favourite: bound-shark steak, a cut thick and fat as mutton. Neatly stripped of any ammonia stench, after a day's soaking in Zee brine. The result is worth the effort. Grilled within an inch of its life, this is evidently more your engineer's style of cooking; he sighs as he cuts it up, with a knife red as the oozing blood. 

"Ah- this isn't going to be quirky, is it? Just an ordinary steak, right?"

"This course, yes."

"Oh good."

"As long as you don't drop dead by the time you've finished the last bite, you'll be fine." Even dead, a shark is a shark. 

He shrugs, continues shoveling it down. "Good job I laid in that stock of horse-head amulets last time we were in London, then. Is there any ketchup?"

You resist the temptation to brain him with the bottle, and even avoid demonstrating dismay as he soaks chunks of shark in richly seasoned mushroom sauce. Not that you wouldn't like to read him the riot act; but the sheer magnitude of his gastronomical happiness is something even your refined palate is ill-equipped to protest. All you can do is revel in his enjoyment yourself, and swear privately that the Apicus Club will never hear of your temporary infatuation with such a distressingly pedestrian dish. 

Never mind. Course number four will be a trifle more outre.

The sashami jillyfleur is the picture of perfection: transparent, quivering, delectable. Set on a neat lattice of white flesh, with skin crisped brown.

"Whoa," the Mechanic says. "What kind of meat is this?"

 "Yours," you assure him. "The Haunted Doctor retained a portion, when you had that dreadful accident with the mangle. Packed on ice in case of need."

(You might have saved it for yourself...but then, he's an engineer. There's bound to be another catastrophe one of these days.)

"So it's not technically cannibalism," the Mechanic says, after pondering the subject very hard for several minutes. 

"Technically, no."

"Stone and Storm help me," he says, frowning as he begins to spoon up tiny savoury gobules. His senses find little flavour in the dish, though you can detect its subtle harmonies, a fine tingling upon the tongue. "At least it isn't horse-hoof aspic..."

Course number five is simply a pleasant thing, all satisfaction for the both of you: Beloved  _baccala_.In the vernacular, fried fish balls, which is why the Bandaged Poissonnier doesn't call it that. One secret differentiates it from those common Rubbery Lumps, so beloved in the Neath: genuine Surface potatoes, pounded into a fine mash. Some connoisseurs would judge it a waste, to mingle the precious imported stuff so. 

A pox on that opinion. The comely combination of well-matched ingredients is what elevates cuisine from craft to art. 

"Ooh, crunchy!"

He has no class whatsoever, and lifts each sphere between thumb and forefinger (how has the man failed to note the two-tined fork, placed so readily to hand?) But at least his enjoyment is whole-hearted, this time; and that relaxed, sustained contentment alone would be worth the candle. 

That won't last. Sixth is a cutting of dawn fluke, flash-cooked in the only conceivable fashion; with a Correspondence sigil branded into the flesh. 

(The Poissonnier is of the belief that lead impairs the taste of food. You had many entertaining differences of opinion with the Poissonnier whilst preparing this dinner, and anticipate the need of a live specimen or six to spare the colonist's outraged feelings.)

"...you have to be joshing me," the Mechanic says. "How much did this cost?"

"Not more than I'm preparing to spend on that Impeller. I do value your sanity."

"I'm not sure I deserve it." He has a comical shyness about him now, as though only now realising the magnitude of your efforts tonight. 

Which is why, of all the possible candidates for this dinner, it had to be him. Anybody with better sense would have suffered misgivings and begged off about five courses ago. 

"It's not a question of desert," you say, gravely; and with tremendous difficulty, stop yourself from writhing ecstatically, as he tastes the first harsh slice. 

It takes him a considerable time to consume it. Protesting all the while that he's already quite full, that this fish or whatsoever it may be burns like the sun, that he needs further drafts of solacefruit lassi to soften its bite; but you have a high tolerance for spice, and urge on his cure.

The seventh course, you present with a reverence mingled with triumph. Nothing less than Mt Nomad's heart, known rightly in the Chelonate as an aphrodisiac of quite unparalleled strength. Baked in a nice cream sauce. 

You inform the Mechanic of all these facts before he begins, as a courtesy. He laughs in your face. 

A quarter hour later, when the dish is two-thirds gone, the point's clearly been made; only by now he's throwing himself at your feet, begging for release. 

You demur; you gently indicate his altered state of consciousness; you tell him, point-blank, to obey orders and finish this costly feast before he dare even contemplate anything else. He takes up his place again, and seizes fork and knife with the air of one who will patiently suffer through every torment of hell, for the sake of a single blessed encounter. 

And of course, as he desires, so do you; and as he finishes the last heartening bite, there is an unmistakeable moment when he might have you for the asking. 

However: he is customarily gracile, frugal in his habits, unaccustomed to the finer things in life; and so the sad fact is, after seven courses the Mechanic is simply in no shape for lovemaking. You assist your replete engineer to the bed, to be sure, upon which he proceeds to moan and toss and swear to never, ever eat a meal like that again in his life. 

Just as well, seeing as a lover who demanded such feasts as a regular perk would immediately bankrupt you. Besides, the honey's wearing off now, and with it your evening's zest...so you watch with careful attention until his senses give out, lulled to sleep by satiation.

Then go out to enjoy your own tea in the wardroom. Far less extravagant, deliberately so. It's a pleasant thing, how your jaded senses have been reawakened by the contrast.

A white night is more than compensated for, when you unlock your cabin door next day to find an engineer in perfect fettle.

"I can't even remember the last time I slept so soundly, without drugs. Thank you for everything. The food, and the cure and- and not taking advantage, I appreciated that."

No trouble, you assure him. 

For why trouble a satisfactory relationship with such vulgarity, when you'd already had your fill?


End file.
